Alone in the Forest | Van Life & the Unexpected

A dear friend of mine reminded me that there are a million futures we could live. She is 38 years old and single. Her joy is contagious and she is thriving. This woman has loved deeply and experienced immense loss. She enthusiastically shared her new passions just a few days ago. making the decision to rent a house in South America to prioritize time in the jungle studying ethnobotany and its pathology in a complete 180-degree turn from his

life

in the New York woods as a full-time artist, but it seems more acceptable In today's world, to live the future that you have already decided, you choose one or some of those millions of options and you stick with it, you live it as you have agreed and then you die and that is what people have come to accept as normal, but My question lately is why does

life

feel too fluid and too dynamic for such a rigid expectation of ourselves and others?

I have now realized that this somewhat invisible expectation is exactly what I have been fighting against because this is my first sip of coffee from a cup that I did very well and since we are a little higher up now there are so many birds and it was the perfect way to wake up. There is one Robin in particular who is very talkative at the moment Chris is on a guys trip which I really admire him and his friends, every year they plan a week trip together and every two years they do it abroad and I think Which is the best because think about how many friends we have and we haven't even seen a single one. friend let

alone

have a whole group of friends plan time to see each other, so they all met up in southern Utah and spent a night in the backcountry last night and I'm really looking forward to hearing what that was like.

I went because no one except Chris had done anything like that before and then, you know, they were doing other fun things and all the guys were playing golf and then they were going out to Vegas and I'm so excited for him. spending time with his friends and taking a trip and I'm here EX exactly where I want to travel here was nothing I had planned. I wanted to get to an alpine lake that I had visited years ago with my brother, but multiple attempts on a risky snowy mountain road took me somewhere else and what was going to be a 2 hour drive ended up being a 7 hour day trip. winding through the mountain passes and small towns of southern Utah, and although it sounds exhausting and in many ways.

I smiled for most of it because that day is the epitome of this lifestyle and it's what makes me feel so alive. Plans often fall apart. Adventures happen regardless of your own disposition, and through it all, you find places most people have never been. its own unique beauty and peace and lessons to learn about a month ago. My good friend Elsa and my therapist really encouraged me to journal more intentionally. I've always tried to keep a journal and it's always been very difficult for me to stick with a journaling practice. I've always said that maybe it's not for me, but I finally got a special journal, so it's very different from any of the other journals. my other ones, like planners, calendars, or idea journals, it's just for my thoughts and, um, specific things. that I'm tracking right now, that I'm currently tracking my basil temperature right when I wake up, as well as what phase the Moon is in if I were to see sunlight in the morning or wake up at dawn and how I would classify my health status. cheer up and I hope that over months and years of tracking these things you find a correlation in all of them and maybe not at all, and that would also be fine anyway after a month of writing a special diary and also to be flexible and gentle with myself through it all, I have the best and most consistent journaling practice I've ever had and I think this goes hand in hand with the energy and effort I'm putting into my mental health as well and I think This is the perfect time to give a special thanks to Better Help for sponsoring this video.

There are a lot of ways that therapy can improve your life and for me, although therapy can be very difficult at times, it has helped me understand the ways that I react or the decisions that I make in life and I have discovered which is a very slow but steady path towards greater resilience and awareness in life and if this feels aligned with you, there is a link in the description below where you can connect with a therapist through better help. Hi, bringing someone into your life with that kind of depth can be very overwhelming. I think a lot of us, including myself, don't even speak with that kind of V, inability and openness with the most important people. our lives and better help makes the process really simple and easy to use look at these little toes after completing a simple questionnaire in most cases you will be assigned a therapist within 48 hours, crazy right?

I know, my God, this is the best part of my life now. Eyes is that Better Help allows you to have therapy sessions over a phone call, video chat, or even through messaging, whatever works best for you by clicking the link in the description below or visiting Betterhelp.com. Len and Aila, you can support this channel and You also get 10% off your first month with better help so you can connect with a therapist and see if it helps you. You're so cute. The dogs are exhausted. It has been very nice to have them in an area where there are no others. people, there have been no RVs, vans, vans, campers.

I've seen one person this whole time in a little Ranger with like eight dogs, so they've had this whole place to play and run and get their Zoomies out, and I think they're enjoying it here as much or more than I am. I just finished working out and did some sprints on this little two track here and I noticed this Mullen Mullen patch is great their leaves are super soft I think some people call this um Lambs here maybe so I'm going to harvest some, hope it's not too dry. What do you think you like? Oh, sorry Kila, so I haven't tried this in many years.

I have never had success at one of the things Mullen is really great about because it is a hand drill and I have never had a fire with a hand drill. I've done it many times with a bodill and made notches here and here I'll probably have to do a lot of tries basically with my spindle. it will sit on top of that and ideally the similar bits of material that are rubbing together from friction will fall into that notch and then it will also have air flow so it can ignite if you heat it up enough.

Hand drilling is a very difficult skill I think because not only do you need the right technique, but you also need strength and stamina to apply enough pressure and go fast enough. This will be my axis. I just have to clean it up a little, so don't destroy my hands completely. I just grabbed some juniper bark. There's a big branch down there that's broken off. I didn't get this from a tree. It would be very rude in case you succeed in the case. I have an ember and I can start a fire. I need to be prepared and I'm getting ready by building a nest and juniper bark is really amazing for this so basically what I'm going to do is roll this between the palms of my hands. hands and leave it very loose, wrap it around my hands and I'm literally making what looks like a nest so that if I get my Ember, I can put it in something that's primed and ready to go and then I can blow. that in a llama, I need to do this just in case, but I don't have high hopes.

I've never had a hand drill flame and I've tried quite a bit now, the thing about hand drilling is that you need speed, especially speed. but also speed and pressure so I can't take my time hello hello Mullen is very soft so he eats it pretty quickly if I get a number this is going to burn everything I don't care I just realized I have firewood maybe I could use it the handstand oh it's working fine it's smoking oh I'm getting so tired come on oh I'm so close okay oh my god it's an H number my arms are getting tired too fast I'm so close to getting my first Flame hand drill, I'm doing some trap with this wood, uh, but I don't really care, no, my hands hurt, oh, hello Kila, come on Kila, my hands are raw, maybe in the next few days I can.

To light a fire without a lighter during this time in the mountains, I rarely turned on Starlink, which left me with that beautiful little no service symbol on my phone and every time I spend a few days remaining disconnected from the outside world, I inevitably feel more more connected to myself, I relearn the importance of no distractions and how it challenges the mind to be present. I remember how long each of these days really are and how full our days can be with all the things that really matter to us and I always end up feeling like I have more energy, like my energy is my own and not something I'm wasting on a device without It makes sense, but my favorite part is everything I hear without that unnecessary noise.

I am incredibly attuned to my surroundings. the birds and the mule deer rustling and the oak brush the wind and the crackling of the fire this was the most beautiful thing hey she just took my marshmallow stick hey what are you doing with that i did this i got that feeling back the feeling that I'm really participating in life and right now instead of just distracting myself until it passes it's cold this morning but instead of lighting my wood stove I'm going to light a fire early in the morning, I think it would be very nice, when I was little, my dad used to wake up early and light a fire, and when he left the store the image was always the same, my dad in a baseball cap would be sitting by the fire, usually with his legs crossed and a flannel over him, drinking tea and reading a book with his Black Kettle heating up more water, he would turn to me, smile and say good morning, pickle, and while this is an image I long to experience again I know I won't but I can recreate it any chance I get It's snowing what a treat I can't believe it's snowing so through loss and love and getting older and listening to dear friends I have realized how vast or known the future of Our Lives can be and that never diminishes regardless of be 20, 30 or 60 years old and I hope to always hear those questions, well, lanaa, what are you doing so far? or wow, your life sure has changed since the last time I saw you because the last thing I want is for my mind, my passions, my perspectives and my way of life to remain exactly the same without considering all those possibilities that I have before me, Because there are a million futures and this is how I Choose to live mine for now When we wake up, listen to the birds and see the sun side by side, our fears are over, oh, the good weather has just begun.